A Long Way Home
by meggannn
Summary: "Sedna's six years older than me and Nukka's five years younger," Korra explains. "I was seven when they carted me off to the White Lotus compound for my Avatar training, so we didn't exactly have much time to really get to know each other."


**Title: **A Long Way Home  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:** "Sedna's six years older than me and Nukka's five years younger," Korra explains. "I was seven when they carted me off to the White Lotus compound for my Avatar training, so we didn't exactly have much time to really get to know each other."  
**Genre:** Family/Angst  
**Word Count:** 1991

* * *

A Long Way Home_  
_

When the bands snap, Korra gathers up the bulk of her hair into a simple wolf-tail and brushes the excess fringe to the side. She walks into the gym for practice and Mako notes the difference with just a single glance, but Bolin blinks. "What's with the new hairdo, Korra?"

"The old hair ties broke," she says, stepping up to the nets to warm up with the earthbending disks next to him. "I was halfway here when they snapped so I didn't have time to go back and get new ones."  
Mako continues practicing on his punching bag in the corner of the gym, the heavy thump-thump-thump of his fists hitting the canvas. "Just don't let it get in your eyes and impair your vision."

"Aye-aye, captain."

"Is that a traditional Water Tribe hairstyle?" Bolin asks as they practice against the nets. "What you normally wear?"

"A modified version of one," she pants. The balance of her hair feels weird now, as one solid mass hanging heavily from her skull, but it doesn't affect her bending: a swift trust of her right fist sends a disk spinning across the gym and thwacking against the rope. "A lot of the women wear loops, but those got in the way when I started firebending, so I tied most of it back and my little sister made some ties for my front bangs."

Across the gym, Mako grunts. "I didn't know you had a sister."

"Two."

"Two sisters," he corrects. "There's a whole family of you. Well, you're just full of surprises."

"It's no big deal," she says. "I'm not particularly close to either of them."

Bolin blinks and Mako glances over at the both of them. She realizes that it's probably weird for them to think of siblings that may not be all that close to each other, especially considering the two of them have relied so closely on each other's companionship for so long.

But, well… it isn't her fault Nukka is too young to remember her properly and Sedna hates her guts. It isn't her fault that neither of her siblings can even bend a drop of water but she's been tossing rocks and fire around since the age of five. It isn't her fault they're all barely on speaking terms.

Even as a kid Korra had known that her older sister resented the attention she got after the White Lotus visited. She's the Avatar; of course she'd get special treatment. Really, Sedna should have expected it, but Korra supposes nothing could really prepare you for the moment when your four-year-old younger sister singes your hair with firebending when you tell her it's time for bed, and you can't even lift a drop of water to douse the flame.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that kind of rift wouldn't make for the closest bond between siblings.

"Sedna's six years older than me and Nukka's five years younger," Korra explains to Mako and Bolin now, pumping another two disks into the net. The impact sends shivers up and down the rope that stretch to the ceiling and run back down again. "I was seven when they carted me off to the White Lotus compound for my Avatar training, so we didn't exactly have much time to really get to know each other."

"Couldn't you go back home on the weekends or something?" Bolin asks. "I mean, it kind of sucks that you grew up so far away from your family, but they had to allow you some time with them, right?"

"A few visits a month isn't really enough to establish a very close relationship," Korra says. _Like the one you two have, _she almost says, but she bites her tongue and finishes her earthbending warm-ups, then walks over to the waterbending funnels to start on her regular exercises. "They're both nonbenders so I doubt we'd have much in common to talk about, anyway."

Korra hasn't seen her older sister since she was ten, but she remembers the very loud, very public fight that happened when she finally stormed out. She remembers her parents screaming, she remembers the bitterness that used to hang around Sedna's head like a cloud, the condescension dripping in her tone whenever she referred to Korra's training, the way she'd try to cart Nukka off whenever she and Korra got too close…

And Nukka was just two when Korra left to live at the compound. She was five when Sedna left their family for Republic. Korra knows that it must be confusing for a young non-bender, growing up with waterbending parents and an Avatar for a sister, but Nukka has spent her life hearing two very different things and Korra dreads the day when her younger sister will be forced to choose. In one ear there are anecdotes from their parents and the White Lotus about how special Korra is… and in the other, there are hushed whispers from Sedna about how Korra _isn't _that great, really, she's just like you and me – and really, Nukka, you're better than that, people don't really need to bend, anyway… You can grow up to be better than Korra, really, we both can…

Korra whips the water in her hands and slices cleanly through a row of prepared dummies that crack apart and tumble across the floor upon impact.

"That'd be a foul," Mako's voice echoes from across the gym. "Water blasts can't last more than a second in duration."

Korra has half a mind to try the water whip on him next, but she reigns in her temper and tells herself to breathe, control her temper, and try the calming techniques Tenzin taught her. She's the Avatar. She's moving forward. She doesn't need the baggage.

She lifts the water with her hands, balances it, and tries again.

* * *

Her parents send her gifts.

_Just something to let you know we're thinking of you, _her mother writes. The note is attached to a batch of seal jerky, roasted by her father to perfection just the way she liked it. Folded neatly are some lighter pants, thinner and made for warmer weather. In Republic's stifling heat, it's exactly the thing she needs to remind her of home.

Stuffed in the corner of the package is a hand-crafted armband with a pattern she's never seen before. A tiny note is stitched inside, threated into the fabric with practiced, careful hands.

_Hope you're doing okay, Korra. Good luck on your airbending training. You're a great Avatar! – Nukka_

Korra tugs the armband on. The stitched note presses against the inside of her wrist, gentle against her skin, and she tucks the rest of the gifts away for later.

* * *

Sedna makes her debut as an equalist seven weeks after Korra arrives in Republic. The alleyway battle is brutal and raw and bloody – they're outnumbered seven to three, Mako and Bolin are injured but still kicking – and it isn't until she notices the matching armband that she puts the two together.

Korra blasts her sister back with a gust of air (Tenzin would be so proud, and under normal circumstances she'd be patting herself on the back, but she's so confused and hurt she barely knows what she's doing anymore) and stops fighting for a moment to take her in. Memories of her sister are sometimes fuzzy at best, but the build, the stance, it's all her. And that's Nukka's craftsmanship on her arm, the edge of a Water Tribe armband tucked inside the equalist uniform that their younger sister must have sent before Korra even arrived in the city herself.

Really, it's no wonder that Sedna left as soon as she turned legal. The equalist movement in Republic must have attracted her here like a shark to a warm-blooded meal.

"Sedna," Korra says, mouth thick with blood and bitterness.

"Korra."

"Traitor."

"_Bender._"

Korra attacks with ice, swirling and whistling through the air like knives – Sedna dodges, jabs at her arm, leers and mocks and swipes –

"Sedna, this is ridiculous," Korra calls out above the noise of battle, dimly noting that the equalists are overtaking her companions behind her. "I know, I'd be upset with me too, but – "

"You don't get it, Korra," she hisses from behind the mask, "you never could. Just sit back and let me take care of your little bending problem and as soon as I fix Mom and Dad then we'll be a right proper family like _normal _people – "

A large white mass erupts out of nowhere and blasts Sedna back into the nearest building, then leaps toward Korra and wags her tail, barking at her to leap on.

"Naga," Korra says in relief, hopping into the saddle immediately and taking the reins. "Good to see you, girl – "

Bolin earthbends himself and his brother up to Naga's back. The brothers cram themselves into the seats behind her as Naga takes off, bumping and fumbling for solid gripping on the rough ride through the streets.

"Who," Mako pants, and Korra realizes with a jolt that he's injured, clutching a bleeding side, and trying not to pass out as his brother holds him upright. "Who was _that_?"

Korra doesn't answer, but from the way Mako suddenly tightens his grip on her pelt, the way she hears Bolin inhale a small breath of air through his teeth, she knows they understand.

* * *

Korra knows it's only a matter of time before a decision will have to be made. She heard the fights when she was younger; she stayed up past her bedtime and listened in on the arguments her sister made, the way her parents would shoot her down and stomp on any efforts Sedna put forth that would push Korra out of their hair and into the White Lotus compound sooner.

"She's your sister," her mother had said, and a seven-year-old Korra would huddle closer to the door to hear the conversation better, careful not to give any indication of her presence. "Sedna, she's your little sister and you should love her even if she were born as a polar bear dog."

"I find it a little hard to believe that Korra, Nukka, and I are all on the same footing here when one of us is the freaking Avatar and the rest of us can't even move a drop of water." Even at thirteen, Sedna had a fierce ruthlessness, a stubborn streak to the point of viciousness. Really, Korra should know. It runs in the blood.

"Sedna, that's ridiculous," her father responded. "You know full well that your mother and I love all of you equa – "

"You keep going on about equality," Sedna had spat, and her footsteps sounded closer to the door Korra was hiding behind, so she quickly crept back into her mat next to her sleeping two-year-old sister and held her breath. "I don't think you know what it means."

It's understandable, of course. She tells herself for years that there's nothing she could do to fix this; it's no fault of hers, of course, and these types of collisions between families happen all the time. No member of their family was ever known for their indecisiveness. The gambles they make bet everything; it's all or nothing with Sedna, with the equalists, with the world, and Korra knows that.

And so when Korra gets news of her parents' and younger sister's deaths, of the massacre that occurred at her village in the Southern Water Tribe conducted by a group of Amon's elite fighters, she mourns, but in her heart, she isn't at all surprised.

This is normal, the equalists are trying to say. And this kind of thing will continue to _be _normal until every bender is gone for good.

It's okay, Korra tells herself, to feel ashamed and guilty and torn. No family is perfect; no family can stay together and love each other forever. It's human nature. It's normal.

And it happens all the time.


End file.
